Famous Americans of Recent Times Part 14

In February, 1830, the will was executed, and deposited in Mr.

Girard's iron safe. None but the two men who had drawn the will, and the three men who witnessed the signing of it, were aware of its existence; and none but Girard and Mr. Duane had the least knowledge of its contents. There never was such a keeper of his own secrets as Girard, and never a more faithful keeper of other men's secrets than Mr. Duane. And here we have another ill.u.s.tration of the old man's character. He had just signed a will of unexampled liberality to the public; and the sum which he gave the able and devoted lawyer for his three weeks' labor in drawing it was three hundred dollars!

Girard lived nearly two years longer, always devoted to business, and still investing his gains with care. An accident in the street gave a shock to his const.i.tution, from which he never fully recovered; and in December, 1831, when he was nearly eighty-two years of age, an attack of influenza terminated his life. True to his principles, he refused to be cupped, or to take drugs into his system, though both were prescribed by a physician whom he respected.

Death having dissolved the powerful spell of a presence which few men had been able to resist, it was to be seen how far his will would be obeyed, now that he was no longer able personally to enforce it. The old man lay dead in his house in Water Street. While the public out of doors were curious enough to learn what he had done with his money, there was a smaller number within the house, the kindred of the deceased, in whom this curiosity raged like a mania. They invaded the cellars of the house, and, bringing up bottles of the old man's choice wine, kept up a continual carouse. Surrounding Mr. Duane, who had been present at Mr. Girard's death, and remained to direct his funeral, they demanded to know if there was a will. To silence their indecent clamor, he told them there was, and that he was one of the executors.

On hearing this, their desire to learn its contents rose to fury. In vain the executors reminded them that decency required that the will should not be opened till after the funeral. They even threatened legal proceedings if the will were not immediately produced; and at length, to avoid a public scandal, the executors consented to have it read. These affectionate relatives being a.s.sembled in a parlor of the house in which the body of their benefactor lay, the will was taken from the iron safe by one of the executors.[2]

When he had opened it, and was about to begin to read, he chanced to look over the top of the doc.u.ment at the company seated before him. No artist that ever held a brush could depict the pa.s.sion of curiosity, the frenzy of expectation, expressed in that group of pallid faces.

Every individual among them expected to leave the apartment the conscious possessor of millions, for no one had dreamed of the probability of his leaving the bulk of his estate to the public. If they had ever heard of his saying that no one should be gentleman upon his money, they had forgotten or disbelieved it. The opening paragraphs of the will all tended to confirm their hopes, since the bequests to existing inst.i.tutions were of small amount. But the reader soon reached the part of the will which a.s.signed to ladies and gentlemen present such trifling sums as five thousand dollars, ten thousand, twenty thousand; and he arrived erelong at the sections which disposed of millions for the benefit of great cities and poor children. Some of them made not the slightest attempt to conceal their disappointment and disgust. Men were there who had married with a view to share the wealth of Girard, and had been waiting years for his death. Women were there who had looked to that event as the beginning of their enjoyment of life. The imagination of the reader must supply the details of a scene which we might think dishonored human nature, if we could believe that human nature was meant to be subjected to such a strain. It had been better, perhaps, if the rich man, in his own lifetime, had made his kindred partakers of his superabundance, especially as he had nothing else that he could share with them. They attempted, on grounds that seem utterly frivolous, to break the will, and employed the most eminent counsel to conduct their cause, but without effect. They did, however, succeed in getting the property acquired after the execution of the will; which Girard, disregarding the opinion of Mr. Duane, attempted by a postscript to include in the will. "It will not stand," said the lawyer. "Yes it will," said Girard. Mr. Duane, knowing his man, was silent; and the courts have since decided that his opinion was correct.

Thirty-three years have pa.s.sed since the city of Philadelphia entered upon the possession of the enormous and growing estate with which Mr.

Girard intrusted it. It is a question of general interest how the trust has been administered. No citizen of Philadelphia needs to be informed, that, in some particulars, the government of their city has shown little more regard to the manifest will of Girard than his nephews and nieces did. If he were to revisit the banks of the Schuylkill, would he recognize, in the splendid Grecian temple that stands in the centre of the College grounds, the home for poor orphans, devoid of needless ornament, which he directed should be built there? It is singular that the very ornaments which Girard particularly disliked are those which have been employed in the erection of this temple; namely, pillars. He had such an aversion to pillars, that he had at one time meditated taking down those which supported the portico of his bank. Behold his College surrounded with thirty-four Corinthian columns, six feet in diameter and fifty-nine in height, of marble, with capitals elaborately carved, each pillar having cost thirteen thousand dollars, and the whole colonnade four hundred and forty thousand! And this is the abode of poor little boys, who will leave the gorgeous scene to labor in shops, and to live in such apartments as are usually a.s.signed to apprentices!

Now there is probably no community on earth where the number of honorable men bears a larger proportion to the whole population than in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is a community of honest dealers and faithful workmen. It is a matter of the highest interest to know how it could happen that, in such a city, a bequest for such a purpose should be so monstrously misappropriated.

The magnitude of the bequest was itself one cause of its misappropriation, and the habits of the country were another. When we set about founding an inst.i.tution, our first proceeding is to erect a vast and imposing edifice. When we p.r.o.nounce the word College, a vision of architecture is called up. It was natural, therefore, that the people of Philadelphia, bewildered by the unprecedented amount of the donation, should look to see the monotony of their city relieved by something novel and stupendous in the way of a building; and there appears to have been no one to remind them that the value of a school depends wholly upon the teachers who conduct it, provided those teachers are free to execute their plans. The immediate cause, however, of the remarkable departure from the will in the construction of the princ.i.p.al edifice was this: the custody of the Girard estate fell into the hands of the politicians of the city, who regarded the patronage appertaining thereunto as part of the "spoils" of victory at the polls. As we live at a time when honest lovers of their country frequently meditate on the means of rescuing important public interests from the control of politicians, we shall not deem a little of our s.p.a.ce ill bestowed in recounting the history of the preposterous edifice which Girard's money paid for, and which Girard's will forbade.

On this subject we can avail ourselves of the testimony of the late Mr. Duane. During his own lifetime he would not permit the following narrative to be published, though he allowed it to be used as a source of information. We can now give it in his own words:--

"In relation to the Girard College, _the whole community of Philadelphia, and all political parties in it_, are culpable. At the time of Mr. Girard's death there was a mixture of Democrats and Federalists in our Councils: the former preponderating in number. It is said that of all steps the first is the most important, and that the first proceeding has either a good or a bad influence in all that follow. Now, what was the first step of the Democratic Councils, after Mr. Girard's death, in relation to the College? Were they satisfied with the plan of it as described in his will? Did they scout the project of building a palace for poor orphans? Were there no views to offices and profits under the trust? As I was in the Select Council at the time myself, I can partly answer these questions. Instead of considering the plan of a College given in the will a good one, the Democratic Councils offered rewards to architects for other plans. And as to offices, some members of Councils looked forward to them, to say nothing of aspirants out of doors.

"I have ever been a Democrat in principle myself, but not so much of a modern one in practice as to pretend that the Democratic party are free from blame as to the College. If they had been content with Mr. Girard's plain plan, would they have called in architects for others?

"If they had been opposed to pillars and ornaments, why did they invite scientific men to prepare pictures and plans almost inevitably ornamental? If they had been so careful of the trust funds, why did they stimulate the community, by presenting to them architectural drawings, to prefer some one of them to the simple plan of Girard himself? Besides, after they had been removed from power, and saw preparations made for a temple surrounded with costly columns, why did they not invoke the Democratic Legislature to arrest that proceeding? If they at any time whatever did make such an appeal, I have no recollection of it. For party effect, much may have been said and done on an election day, but I am not aware that otherwise any resistance was made. No doubt there were many good men in the Democratic party in 1831-2, and there always have been many good men in it; but I doubt whether those who made the most noise about the College on election days were either the best Democrats or the best men. The leaders, as they are called, were just as factious as the leaders of their opponents. _The struggle of both for the Girard Fund was mainly with a view to party influence._ How much at variance with Mr. Girard's wishes this course was, may readily be shown.

"Immediately after his death in 1831, his will was published in the newspapers, in almanacs, and in other shapes likely to make its contents universally known. In it he said: 'In relation to the organization of the College and its appurtenances, I leave necessarily many details to the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia, and their successors; and I do so with the more confidence, as, from the nature of my bequests and the benefit to result from them, I trust that my fellow-citizens will observe and evince especial care and anxiety in selecting members for their City Councils and other agents,'

"What appeal could have been more emphatic than this? How could the testator have more delicately, but clearly, indicated his anxiety that his estate should be regarded as a sacred provision for poor orphans, and not 'spoils' for trading politicians?

"In this city, however, as almost everywhere else, to the public discredit and injury, our social affairs had been long mingled with the party questions of the Republic. At each rise or fall of one or the other party, the 'spoils'

were greedily sought for. Even scavengers, unless of the victorious party, were deemed unworthy to sweep our streets.

Mr. Girard's estate, therefore, very soon became an object of desire with each party, in order to increase its strength and favor its adherents. Instead of selecting for the Councils the best men of the whole community, as Mr. Girard evidently desired, the citizens of Philadelphia persisted in preserving factious distinctions, and in October, 1832, the Federal candidates prevailed.

"The triumphant party soon manifested a sense of their newly acquired power. Without making any trial whatever of the efficiency of the rules prepared by their predecessors for the management of the Girard trusts, they at once abolished them; and there were various other a.n.a.logous evidences of intolerance.

"Without a.s.serting that party pa.s.sions actuated them, certain it is, that those who were now in power placed none of Mr. Girard's intimate friends in any position where they could aid in carrying out his views. No serious application was ever made, to my knowledge, to one of them for explanation on any point deemed doubtful. On the contrary, objections made by myself and others to the erection of a gorgeous temple, instead of a plain building for orphans, were utterly disregarded.

"A majority of the citizens of Philadelphia as a political cla.s.s, and not a majority, as a social community, as trustees of a fund for orphans, having thus got entire control of the Girard estate, they turned their attention to the plans of a College collected by their Democratic predecessors. Neither of the parties appears to have originally considered whether the plan described in the will ought not to be followed, if that could be done practically.

The main desire of both so far seems to have been to build in the vicinity of this city a more magnificent edifice than any other in the Union.

"At this time, Mr. Nicholas Biddle was in the zenith of his power. Hundreds of persons, who at the present day find fault with him, were then his wors.h.i.+ppers. He could command any post which he was willing to fill. I do not pretend that he sought any post, 'but it suited his inclinations to be at the head of those who were intrusted by Councils with the construction of the College. Over his colleagues in this, as in another memorable instance, he seems to have had an absolute control. The architect, also, whose plan had been preferred, appears to have considered himself bound to adapt it to Mr. Biddle's conceptions of true excellence. And you now behold the result,--a splendid temple in an unfinished state, instead of the unostentatious edifice contemplated by Mr. Girard.

"Is all this surprising V Why should Democrats think it so?

It was by them that plans and pictures of architects were called for. Why should their opponents be astonished? It was by them that a _carte blanche_ seems to have been given to Mr. Biddle in relation to the plans and the College. Is Mr.

Biddle culpable? Is there no excuse for one so strongly tempted as he was, not merely to produce a splendid edifice, but to connect his name, in some measure, with that of its founder? While I am not an apologist for Mr. Biddle, I am not willing to cast blame upon him alone for the waste of time and money that we have witnessed. As a cla.s.sical scholar, a man of taste, and a traveller abroad, it was not unnatural that he should desire to see near his native city the most magnificent edifice in North America. Having all the pride and sense of power which adulation is calculated to produce, the plain house described in his will may have appeared to him a profanation of all that is beautiful in architecture, and an outrage at once against all the Grecian orders. In short, the will of Mr. Girard to the contrary, Mr. Biddle, like another distinguished person, may have said, 'I take the responsibility.'"

"It is true that this responsibility was a serious one, but less so to Mr. Biddle than to the City Councils. They were the trustees, and ought to have considered Mr. Girard's will as law to them. They should have counted the cost of departing from it. They ought to have reflected that by departing from it many orphans would be excluded from the benefits of education. They should have considered whether a Grecian temple would be such a place as poor orphans destined to labor ought to be reared in. The Councils of 1832-3, therefore, have no apology to offer. But Mr. Biddle may well say to all our parties: 'You are all more in fault than I am. You Democrats gave rewards for plans. You Federalists submitted those plans to me, and I pointed out the one I thought the best, making improvements upon it. A very few persons, Mr. Ronaldson, Mr. Duane, and one or two others alone objected; while the majority of my fellow-citizens, the Councils, and the Legislature, all looked on at what I was doing, and were silent.'"

While erecting an edifice the most opposite to Girard's intentions that could be contrived by man, the architect was permitted to follow the directions of the will in minor particulars, that rendered the building as inconvenient as it was magnificent. The vaulted ceilings of those s.p.a.cious rooms reverberated to such a degree, that not a cla.s.s could say its lesson in them till they were hung with cotton cloth. The ma.s.sive walls exuded dampness continually. The rooms of the uppermost story, lighted only from above, were so hot in the summer as to be useless; and the lower rooms were so cold in winter as to endanger the health of the inmates. It has required ingenuity and expense to render the main building habitable; but even now the visitor cannot but smile as he compares the splendor of the architecture with the homely benevolence of its purpose. The Parthenon was a suitable dwelling-place for a marble G.o.ddess, but the mothers of Athens would have shuddered at the thought of consigning their little boys to dwell in its chilling grandeurs.

We can scarcely overstate the bad effect of this first mistake. It has constantly tended to obscure Mr. Girard's real purpose, which was to afford a plain, comfortable home, and a plain, substantial education to poor orphans, destined to gain their livelihood by labor. Always there have been two parties in the Board of Directors: one favoring a scheme which would make the College a _college_; the other striving to keep it down to the modest level of the founder's intentions. That huge and dazzling edifice seems always to have been exerting a powerful influence against the stricter constructionists of the will.

It is only within the last two years that this silent but ponderous argument has been partially overcome by the resolute good-sense of a majority of the Directors. Not the least evil consequent upon the erection of this building was, that the delay in opening the College caused the resignation of its first President, Alexander D. Bache, a gentleman who had it in him to organize the inst.i.tution aright, and give it a fair start. It is a curious fact, that the extensive report by this gentleman of his year's observation of the orphan schools of Europe has not been of any practical use in the organization of Girard College. Either the Directors have not consulted it, or they have found nothing in it available for their purpose.

The first cla.s.s of one hundred pupils was admitted to the College on the first day of the year 1848. The number of inmates is now six hundred. The estate will probably enable the Directors to admit at length as many as fifteen hundred. It will be seen, therefore, that Girard College, merely from the number of its pupils, is an inst.i.tution of great importance.

Sixteen years have gone by since the College was opened, but it cannot yet be said that the policy of the Directors is fixed. These Directors, appointed by the City Councils, are eighteen in number, of whom six go out of office every year, while the Councils themselves are annually elected. Hence the difficulty of settling upon a plan, and the greater difficulty of adhering to one. Sometimes a majority has favored the introduction of Latin or Greek; again, the manual-labor system has had advocates; some have desired a liberal scale of living for the pupils; others have thought it best to give them Spartan fare. Four times the President has been changed, and there have been two periods of considerable length when there was no President. There have been dissensions without and trouble within. As many as forty-four boys have run away in a single year. Meanwhile, the Annual Reports of the Directors have usually been so vague and so reticent, that the public was left utterly in the dark as to the condition of the inst.i.tution. Letters from masters to whom pupils have been apprenticed were published in the Reports, but only the letters which had nothing but good to say of the apprentices. Large numbers of the boys, it is true, have done and are doing credit to the College; but the public have no means of judging whether, upon the whole, the training of the College has been successful.

Nevertheless, we believe we may say with truth that invaluable experience has been gained, and genuine progress has been made. To maintain and educate six hundred boys, even if those boys had enlightened parents to aid in the work, is a task which would exhaust the wisdom and the tact of the greatest educator that ever lived. But these boys are all fatherless, and many of them motherless; the mothers of many are ignorant and unwise, of some are even vicious and dissolute. A large number of the boys are of very inferior endowments, have acquired bad habits, have inherited evil tendencies. It would be hard to overstate the difficulty of the work which the will of Girard has devolved upon the Directors and teachers of Girard College.

Mistakes have been made, but perhaps they have not been more serious or more numerous than we ought to expect in the forming of an inst.i.tution absolutely unique, and composed of material the most unmanageable.

There are indications, too, that the period of experiment draws to an end, and that the final plan of the College, on the basis of common-sense, is about to be settled. Mr. Richard Vaux, the present head of the Board of Directors, writes Reports in a style most eccentric, and not always intelligible to remote readers; but it is evident that his heart is in the work, and that he belongs to the party who desire the College to be the useful, unambitious inst.i.tution that Girard wished it to be. His Reports are not written with rose-water. They say _something_. They confess some failures, as well as vaunt some successes. We would earnestly advise the Directors never to shrink from taking the public into their confidence. The public is wiser and better than any man or any board. A plain statement every year of the real condition of the College, the real difficulties in the way of its organization, would have been far better than the carefully uttered nothings of which the Annual Reports have generally consisted. It was to Philadelphia that Girard left his estate. The honor of Philadelphia is involved in its faithful administration.

Philadelphia has a right to know how it is administered.

The President of the College is Major Richard Somers Smith, a graduate of West Point, where he was afterwards a Professor. He has served with distinction in the Army of the Potomac, in which he commanded a brigade. To learn how to be an efficient President of Girard College is itself a labor of years; and Major Smith is only in the second year of his inc.u.mbency. The highest hopes are indulged, however, that under his energetic rule, the College will become all that the public ought to expect. He seems to have perceived at once the weak point of the inst.i.tution.

"I find in the College," he says in one of his monthly reports,

"a certain degree of impatience of study, an inertness, a dragging along, an infection of 'young-Americanism,' a disposition to flounder along through duties half done, hurrying to reach--what is never attained--an 'easy success'; and I observe that this state of things is confined to the higher departments of study. In the elementary departments there is life; but as soon as the boy has acquired the rudiments of his English or common-school education, he begins to chafe, and to feel that it Is time for him to _go out_, and to make haste to 'finish (!) his studies,'--which of course he does without much heart."

And again:---

"The 'poor white male orphan,' dwelling for eight or ten years in comfort almost amounting to luxury, waited upon by servants and machinery in nearly all his domestic requirements, unused to labor, or laboring only occasionally, with some reward in view in the form of extra privileges, finds it hard to descend from his fancied elevation to the lot of a simple apprentice; and his disappointment is not soothed by the discovery that with all his learning he has not learned wherewithal to give ready satisfaction to his master."

It has been difficult, also, to induce the large manufacturers to take apprentices; they are now accustomed to place boys at once upon the footing of men, paying them such wages as they are worth. Men who employ forty boys will not generally undertake the responsibilities involved in receiving them as bound apprentices for a term of years.

To remedy all these evils, Major Smith proposes to add to the College a Manual Labor Department, in which the elder boys shall acquire the rudiments of the arts and trades to which they are destined. This will alleviate the tedium of the College routine, a.s.sist the physical development of the boys, and send them forth prepared to render more desirable help to their employers. The present Board of Directors favor the scheme.

In one particular the College has fulfilled the wishes of its founder.

He said in his will,

"I desire that by every proper means, a pure attachment to our republican inst.i.tutions, and to the sacred rights of conscience, as guaranteed by our happy Const.i.tution, shall be formed and fostered in the minds of the scholars."

Three fourths of the whole number of young men, out of their time, who were apprenticed from Girard College, have joined the Union army. We must confess, also, that a considerable number of its apprentices, _not_ out of their time, have run away for the same purpose. With regard to the exclusion of ecclesiastics, it is agreed on all hands that no evil has resulted from that singular injunction of the will.

On the contrary, it has served to call particular attention to the religious instruction of the pupils. The only effect of the clause is, that the morning prayers and the Sunday services are conducted by gentlemen who have not undergone the ceremony of ordination.

The income of the Girard estate is now about two hundred thousand dollars a year, and it is increasing. Supposing that only one half of this revenue is appropriated to the College, it is still, we believe, the largest endowment in the country for an educational purpose. The means of the College are therefore ample. To make those means effective in the highest degree, some mode must be devised by which the politics of the city shall cease to influence the choice of Directors. In other words, "Girard College must be taken out of politics." The Board of Directors should, perhaps, be a more permanent body than it now is. At the earliest possible moment a scheme of instruction should be agreed upon, which should remain unchanged, in its leading features, long enough for it to be judged by its results.

The President must be clothed with ample powers, and held responsible, not for methods, but results. He must be allowed, at least, to nominate all his a.s.sistants, and to recommend the removal of any for reasons given; and both his nominations and his recommendations of removal, so long as the Directors desire to retain his services, should be ratified by them. He must be made to feel strong in his place; otherwise, he will be tempted to waste his strength upon the management of committees, and general whitewas.h.i.+ng. Human nature is so const.i.tuted, that a gentleman with a large family will not willingly give up an income of three thousand dollars a year, with lodging in a marble palace. If he is a strong man and an honorable, he will do it, rather than fill a post the duties of which an ignorant or officious committee prevent his discharging. If he is a weak or dishonest man, he will cringe to that committee, and expend all his ingenuity in making the College show well on public days. It might even be well, in order to strengthen the President, to give him the right of appeal to the Mayor and Councils, in case of an irreconcilable difference of opinion between him and the Directors. Everything depends upon the President. Given the right President, with power enough and time enough, and the success of the College is a.s.sured. Given a bad President, or a good one hampered by committees, or too dependent upon a board, and the College will be the reproach of Philadelphia.

It is a question with political economists, whether, upon the whole, such endowments as this are a good or an evil to a community. There is now a considerable party in England, among whom are several clergymen of the Established Church, who think it would be better for England if every endowment were swept away, and thus to each succeeding generation were restored the privilege of supporting all its poor, caring for all its sick, and educating all its young. Dr. Chalmers appears to have been inclined to an opinion like this. It will be long, however, before this question becomes vital in America. Girard College must continue for generations to weigh heavily on Philadelphia, or to lighten its burdens. The conduct of those who have charge of it in its infancy will go far to determine whether it shall be an argument for or against the utility of endowments. Meanwhile, we advise gentlemen who have millions to leave behind them not to impose difficult conditions upon the future, which the future may be unable or unwilling to fulfil; but either to bestow their wealth for some object that can be immediately and easily accomplished, or else imitate the conduct of that respectable and public-spirited man who left five pounds towards the discharge of his country's debt.

[Footnote 1: The facts which follow I received from the lips and from the papers of this revered man, now no more.--J.P.]

[Footnote 2: Mr. Duane.]

JAMES GORDON BENNETT AND THE NEW YORK HERALD

A few years ago it seemed probable that the people of the United States would be supplied with news chiefly through the agency of newspapers published in the city of New York. We were threatened with a paper despotism similar to that formerly exercised in Great Britain by the London Times; since, when one city furnishes a country with newspapers, one newspaper is sure, at length, to gain such a predominance over others that its proprietor, if he is equal to his position, wields a power greater than ought to be intrusted to an individual. There have been periods when the director of the London Times appeared to be as truly the monarch of Great Britain as Henry VIII. once was, or as William Pitt during the Seven Years' War. It was, we believe, the opinion of the late Mr. Cobden, which Mr.